How To Make A Standing Desk For Under $200: MIT Grads Go Digital

Sit still during your 9 to 5 and you’re shedding years off your life. Some companies have taken that advice to heart, pushing for stand-up meetings and offering standing desks, but if workers opt for a standing desk they could expect to spend $500 or more for quality products.

Until now — introducing the Press Fit Standing Desk. Using one-step, digital manufacturing, MIT graduate students David Yamnitsky and Isabella Tromba are producing standing desks that can be assembled in seconds without screws, tools, or even an instruction manual, and they're selling them at a starting price of $149 through a Kickstarter campaign. With an 8x4 foot sheet of plywood, they use a computer-controlled router to precision cut the parts that are then assembled like a jigsaw puzzle.

Each Press Fit Standing Desk can be manufactured in 2 minutes and assembled in a few seconds.

You’d think something that can be manufactured in just 2 minutes would be cheap and flimsy. But as proven in their promotional video when the duo takes a seat on top, the desk can hold hundreds of pounds. It's engineered with an arching leg design, cross supports, and interlocking parts for stability. Even the materials themselves are quality. They use locally-grown maple plywood that has a UV acrylic coating and is completely formaldehyde-free — none of that compressed wood or plastic pieces you’ll see in other inexpensive products.

The desk is also very portable; just as easy to take a part as it is to build. You can pack it flat, which reduces the burden of lifting and moving an assembled desk and greatly cuts down on shipping prices both to the manufacturer and the consumer. Unlike many of the other standing desks on the market, their product is not adjustable, but they’re selling them at personalized heights from 36 to 42 inches and with 36x24 inch ($199) or 48x30 inch ($279) tops.

It’s the cost-saving and simplicity measures that fueled the engineers behind the product. Tromba fell in love with using a standing desk while interning for Quora in Mountain View, Calif. and wanted one for her dorm at MIT. But when researching products, she couldn’t find an affordable one. Luckily, her boyfriend Yamnitsky, a computer science and engineering major, was taking MIT’s “How to Make (Almost) Anything” course last fall where he had to make a product each week with the different manufacturing tools he was taught. In the week of using a CNC router (computer controlled cutting machine) and learning CAD (computer-aided design), Yamnitsky built his first standing desk.

The plywood is precision cut by a computer controlled router, a tool David Yamnitsky learned to use in MIT's "How to Make (Almost) Anything" course.

Tromba was thrilled and her desk drew a lot of attention from their peers. After manufacturing some for family and friends, the duo realized they had a desirable product, and so, they decided to launch a Kickstarter.

“What’s great about Kickstarter is you don’t have to verify that there’s a market ahead of time,” Yamnitsky said.

The market was there. In just over a day, they exceeded their goal of $10,000, and they’ve now reached $21,302 with 143 backers, 80 of which have pledged for a standing desk, with 24 days to go. They’re also offering same-design sitting desks and stools (for when your feet tire of standing) and even a mini version of the standing desk which they advertise is perfect for stuffed animals. For $10, backers will receive a laser cut “Made In America” keychain.

Yamnitsky said that he believed 3D printing and digital manufacturing will be the resurgence of American-made products. The team identified the potential for this type of product elsewhere in the states, sticking to the locally-sourced model to reduce shipping costs. For manufacturing their products, they partnered with local plywood suppliers and a digital manufacturer in western Massachusetts. Beyond the standing desk, they have 10 other designs in the works, including a bed, which they plan to work on after shipments of the Kickstarter-backed products in September.

All the while both Yamnitsky and Tromba are pursuing graduate degrees at MIT, the institution that also provided their undergraduate educations in engineering. But when it came to launching and running a startup, Yamnitsky gave credit to on-the-job training and support from friends and family.

“You would think this project was all about the design and engineering, but really it was about marketing and communicating,” Yamnitsky said. “They don’t teach you that at MIT.”